Network Function Virtualization is a term or a name of a proposed architecture of telecom services as published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in a series of documents available from the ETSI website. NFV uses generic hardware platform and generic software deployable over any Virtualized environment (i.e. Virtual Machine). Thus, NFV enables creating a network much more flexible and dynamic than a legacy communication network where HW and SW where tightly coupled. In NFV-based networks, a Virtual Network Function (VNF) decouples the software implementation of the network function from the infrastructure resources it runs on. A network service is based on one or more VNFs and/or Physical Network Functions (PNFs), their interconnections, and chaining definitions. The VNFs can be executed on almost any generic hardware processing facility. Therefore, VNFs may be installed, removed, and moved between hardware facilities, much more easily, less costly and thus, more frequently.
The flexibility of the NFV-based network enhances the means available for optimizing the network's capacity and performance. However, current techniques for dynamically testing such networks and associated functionality are limited.
There is thus a need for addressing these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.